


Ghosts From The Past

by LananiA3O



Series: Batfam Week prompt fills [7]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Arkham (Video Games)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Branding, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Good Batdad™, Mutilation, PTSD, Rescue, Torture, happyish ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 06:23:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12600248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LananiA3O/pseuds/LananiA3O
Summary: Batman Arkham Knight AU. Joker did not die in Arkham City. As the Arkham Knight and Scarecrow implement their plans for the City Of Fear, Joker lays low, waiting patiently for the right time to strike. His first target is Batman. His second is the Arkham Knight.





	Ghosts From The Past

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Loxare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loxare/gifts).



> Finally, at long last, after almost five months, I am filling my last Batfam Week prompt.  
> You can thank Loxare for this particular horrible that grew in the telling. Not quite as bloody and painful as Red, but we are revisiting some of Arkham!Jason's darkest moments here so... yeah. You know me, guys. Proceed at your own risk.  
> Loxare's original prompt can be found here:  
> http://lananiscorner.tumblr.com/post/167033190993/i-thought-of-another-one-arkham-au-where-joker
> 
> For status updates, writing trivia, fandom/fanfiction/writing related questions and occasional random ramblings, please visit my tumblr: http://lananiscorner.tumblr.com/

_Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!_

Jason cursed under his breath as he swung from beam to beam across Merchant Bridge, avoiding the mines in the ground. He cursed as he ran for Arkham Peninsula. He cursed as he pushed down the laughter echoing through his head.

_Why there, of all places? Why the Asylum? Why? Why? Why?_

He knew why, of course. It was Scarecrow’s main BOO. That didn’t mean Jason had to like it.

 _I never had a problem with it_ , the Arkham Knight sneered from the back of his mind. _You are the coward here, Jason. Only you._

 _Well, we’re both going to have a problem with it now_ , Jason thought as he skittered to a halt in front of the main gate. Three of his militia men were hanging from the top of the iron structure, bright purple smiles painted on their faces. He switched on the tactical vision of his helmet and marked his targets. There were no more life signs from anyone on the militia frequency, but the place was crawling with people. Joker’s people.

“Fuck!”

Jason slipped over the cliffs, readied his rifle and took out the two snipers on guard in quick succession. He grappled onto the nearby roof before the rest could make his position and started making his way around the perimeter. He should have gone after Joker before Bruce. They had both been supposed to die tonight, of course, but he should have gone after the fucking, sadistic clown first, but Scarecrow had convinced the Knight that they needed him and now here they were. Scarecrow’s men were dead. Scarecrow probably, too. And Joker... Joker was almost certainly in there, in the main hall of the mansion, together with Batman (strapped to a gurney) and Robin and Gordon (beaten up to hell and gone). Fantastic.

And it was all Jason’s fault. Why had he been so stupid? Why had he believed Joker? Why had he not believed Barbara? Why had he not taken the chance to free her and go home?

 _Oh, right. I thought Bruce was gonna lock me up or kill me._ Jason reloaded his rifle and sniped the last two henchmen guarding the door.

_Knees and shoulders, knees and shoulders, knees and shoulders._

Okay, Bruce wouldn’t have _killed_ him, Jason knew that, but he had also believed that he would not be understanding in the least, and yet here Bruce was, having all but begged for him to lay down his guns. It was so un-Bruce, Jason still didn’t quite know what to make of it. What he did know was that things were not making much sense any more. What he did know was that he no longer wanted Bruce dead.

Joker, on the other hand. Joker could go to fucking hell and stay there for all eternity.

He snuck in through one of the high windows that Ivy’s plants had dug through and perched in the rafters with the rifle drawn. Scarecrow was howling in terror. Joker was laughing at his plight. And Bruce... Bruce had a syringe stuck in his neck and he was laughing with him. Jason froze.

That was not Bruce’s laugh, not Batman’s. It was the hysterical howl that haunted Jason’s dreams and echoed through his memories. What the hell had Joker and Scarecrow done to him?

“Ooh, Bats, you are a hoot! Much better than this guy, certainly.” Joker laughed once more, then aimed his revolver at Crane and put a bullet straight through his mangled face. Only when Batman parroted his laughter did the smile fade from Jokers face. “Hey! I’m telling the jokes here, Batsy! You’re stealing my thunder.”

“Nope,” the staff extended quickly, the arm even more so. The force of the swing as Robin jumped to his feet sent Joker crashing into a nearby console. “That would be me.”

“Oh, you fucking idiot!” Jason aimed without thinking. He didn’t have a clear headshot, but he could see Joker aiming the gun as Robin hurried to pick up one of the last few intact fear gas bottles on Scarecrow’s suit. He was NOT going to get another Robin. Very fucking definitely not.

The shot hit perfectly, going straight through the clown’s wrist and sending him howling in pain as the gun fell from his grasp. Gordon dived for it, while Robin jammed the second needle into Bruce’s throat and scanned the rafters for the origin of the shot, but Jason had already moved. He needed to get around that barricade of knocked over desks. He needed to—

“Fuck!”

The gun went off just as Jason had found a new perch and its bullet landed straight in Gordon’s chest. The Clown got up with a wide grin and escaped through the nearest window. Jason cursed under his breath as he made to follow.

It was the sound of anguished growling and Robin going “oh crap” that made him look, and Jason’s eyes widened. There, thirty feet below, James Gordon was writhing in pain as his flesh mutated and grew, ripping his uniform and extending his spine through his back.

_Titan._

He had heard of the drug. He had seen the footage of the fight between Joker and Bruce at Arkham Asylum. This was not good. Robin was still injured. And Batman... Batman was not too badly injured, nor was he laughing like a maniac anymore, but he looked, sluggish. This was not good. With a muttered curse, Jason turned away from Joker’s trail and fired a round into each of Batman’s restraints.

The shuriken came flying for his head almost instantaneously and he dodged it by tumbling straight off the rafters. He connected the grapnel hook at the very last second and used his momentum to kick the titan hard and throw it off balance, then disassembled his rifle back into its individual guns.

“Get him out of here, now!”

“You think I’m taking orders from you?” Robin lobbed back at him. You’re the reason we’re in this mess!”

“Robin? Robin is that you?”

In the distance, Jim Gordon had lifted one of the heavy tables and was ready to throw. Bruce was swaying on the gurney, dazed and weakened. The kid bent down to remove the shackles around his ankles. Jason got out his modified Batclaw and zip-kicked the table in mid-air. It broke in half with the force of his impact, sending wood splintering to their left and right and pain shooting up through his nine-times-broken ankle. Jason growled.

“I know you won’t believe this, but I want your over-sized, darling FIL over there to get out of this without a bullet for a head just as much as you do.” He aimed at the shoulders and knees and hit perfectly, but the titan didn’t feel it. If anything at all, it seemed to get angrier. Jason frowned. “And this is gonna blow your mind, but I don’t want B dead either, so get moving. ESRA, Birdie! NOW!”

That was all the time he had and already Gordon was coming for them. Jason caught Robin’s shocked look out of the corner of his eyes, but it didn’t matter. He grabbed a flashbang and threw it straight in the commissioner’s face, then went for the attack. His first instinct was to draw the guns once more, to aim straight for the soft spots. Eyes. Mouth. Throat. But that wouldn’t do. This wasn’t some Joker thug with a rap sheet the size of his arm. This was Gordon. Barb’s dad. He couldn’t.

 _Yes, you can_ , the Arkham Knight teased as an unlucky swing of the grotesquely hugged arms send him flying into a nearby wall. _You just don’t have the guts._

Jason pushed himself to his knees with a short wince. Something in his ribs was howling in agony. He breathed through the pain and the dust and for a moment it was all painfully familiar.

Too familiar.

He caught him coming in through the main door, a number of his crew in tow, all dressed in bright purple and green. A dozen. Maybe more. Too many to go up against in combination with a titan. Too many in combination with a titan that was Jim Gordon.

 _Jim..._ He had to get him out of here. For Barb. Joker was not gonna let him live, Jason knew that much.

He dodged the first tranquilizer shot with ease, the second with a complex flip that Dick had taught him long ago. It put him at just the right angle to lure Gordon up the stairs, wrap the line of the Batclaw around his legs, and make him stumble. Now real bullets were flying, and Jason used his gauntlets to cover himself best as he could and charged, ramming into the titan at full speed. A massive fist hit him in the face, cracking the left half of his helmet open like an egg and sending shards tumbling into his collar, but at least he wasn’t the only one who got hit hard. The wall at the back of the hall had been unstable to begin with, thanks to Ivy’s plants, and now it cracked under the massive weight of the thing Joker had created. Gordon howled as he tumbled down the cliff, but all Jason could do was sigh in relief. If this Titan drug stuff had given him enough muscle to shrug off as many stray bullets as he already had, a tumble down the cliff would not kill him. At least Jason hoped so. Jesus, fuck, he hoped so.

The tranq shot that actually did hit barely registered as more than a mosquito bite, but it was there. Jason plucked the feathered round from his leg in disgust and sent it right over the cliff after Gordon. Already his vision was starting to blur as he reached for his gun once more. From behind him, Joker’s laugh crawled up his spine and through his ear, right into the deepest curves of his brain. He couldn’t...

_Not again, please not again..._

_Then don’t LET him_ , the voice inside of him that had once been Robin urged in despair. _Don’t make the same mistake twice!_

As the world started to dissolve into oily shadows before his eyes, Jason swiped across the part of his helmet that was still working. Then, his face hit the ground and darkness took him.

***

Everything around him was silent as a crypt. Tim wanted to throw up.

The mask had come off the moment they had arrived at the cave. The cape as soon as he had maneuvered Bruce into the isolation chamber. Screw today. Screw freaking Halloween and send it all to hell! Tim rubbed at his temples with what little energy was left in his fingers and took a deep breath.

“Tea, Master Drake?” Alfred held the cup in his direction long before Tim could answer and he took it gladly. He fancied himself a good detective, but he doubted he would ever find out what exactly made Alfred so good at predicting just what everyone needed. “Miss Gordon just called. She is on her way here with Master Grayson and some important—“

“Barb is alive?!” The cup slid from his grasp and made it all but six inches before Alfred saved the porcelain from a violent death. Granted, he now had tea all over his boots and the floor but... “She is really--?”

He had to be sure. Tim turned back to the computer and opened the comms channel. The connection went live in less than ten seconds and the roaring noise that came through confirmed Alfred’s account.

“Robin?”

“Barb!” Tim laughed. Perhaps it was not the right reaction for this kind of occasion, but he couldn’t help it. There was no other way to vocalize that feeling in his chest, that vice that had suddenly uncurled from around his heart, those thorns that had suddenly been pulled from his very soul. If he had had a heart attack right now, he would have died a happy man. “I’m so glad you’re alive!”

“Bruce didn’t tell you.” Barbara sounded only mildly surprised. Even over the roar of the motorcycle, Tim could hear her curse. He glanced at the containment unit behind his back and returned the favor.

“Of course he fucking didn’t.”

“Tim—“

“Did he tell you he’s the fifth Joker-infected that we put up that cell for in Panessa?” More silence. Despite the noise of the engine, Tim was sure he could have heard a pin drop. “Didn’t think so. Let’s talk about it when you get here, ok?”

“Ok.” There was more she wasn’t telling him, but Tim didn’t push. God knew where between Gotham and the manor Dick and Barbara were right now. There was nothing they could do now.

“Tell Dick to drive safely, ok?”

Barbara laughed. “Dick, drive safely!”

“I always do!”

Tim could hear the indignant grin underneath those words through the comms and he knew it would be fine. Dick was a prankster and a goofball, but he was reliable to the core. _As a matter of fact_ , Tim thought as he switched off the comms unit and marched over to the cell on the other side of the room, _he’s the most reliable guy I know right now._

A day ago, that would have been Bruce. Bruce, who now sat in his cell, cool as a cucumber, looking not the least bit worried or upset. Bruce, who had let Tim wrangle him into the Batmobile and then into this cell, who had let Tim take his cowl and gauntlets, followed by a pint of his blood, without the slightest counter-argument. Bruce, who had been silent as ever. Silent as a damn crypt. And, god, how Tim hated _that_ kind of silence!

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“About what?”

“About Barb!” Tim wanted to punch him in the face. “About you. Your blood. I trusted you, Bruce! And you left me to—“

“I’m sorry.” Tim flinched. Bruce did not interrupt people very often. He certainly didn’t do it while the cowl was off, while someone could read the turmoil in his face. “I’m sorry, Tim.” He certainly didn’t apologize a lot. “I should have told you about Barbara. I was going to. After getting the servers back online so she could have eyes and ears outside of GCPD. After making sure she was safe.”

“Yeah, because GCPD was so safe right then, wasn’t it?” He took out his staff and threw it at the Batmobile. It bounced off without so much as a scratch on the window and that only pissed him off more. “I dreamed of driving that baby, you know? I always wanted to. Just not like this.”

“You all did.” A hint of amusement swung in his voice. “You. Dick. Jason...”

“Well, Dick and Jason aren’t here, Bruce,” Tim interrupted. “But Dick is on his way and he and Barb will be here with urgent news from GCPD in less than ten minutes. I have had enough goddamn surprises to last me a lifetime, so start talking. You owe me.”

He hadn’t really expected an answer. Bruce never reacted well to orders. Batman even less so. Tim was talking to a metaphorical wall and the knowledge infuriated him to the point where he almost missed the first five or six words.

“I was going to lock myself away as soon as Scarecrow and the Arkham Knight were dealt with.” Bruce remained right were he was, but his voice sounded a thousand miles away. “I have known of my condition since the time Harley trapped me in that Joker shrine she built in Arkham City. During those two days meditating inside that cage, I heard Joker’s voice for the first time. He had been in my head ever since.”

“Had been?”

“He’s gone now, Tim,” Bruce said softly, and for a moment Tim was almost ready to believe it. The Batcomputer hadn’t finished its analysis yet, but the first rough results showed no more infection and an increased activity of Bruce’s white blood cells. His immune system was fighting back the infection it had been helpless against just a few hours ago, and Tim had no clue why. Another unanswered question.

“Scarecrow’s toxin amplified the effects of my condition,” Bruce finally continued. For the last nine months, my worst fear has been to become the very thing I was trying to stop. When you heard me laugh, back in the Asylum, that was when I was at my worst. But you already know that, didn’t you, Tim?”

Tim shifted uncomfortably. He had had a hunch. A desperate hunch born out of necessity because there were only two men in the world Tim would have judged competent enough to create an antidote against Scarecrow’s toxin on the fly, and one of them was dead while the other had gone insane. That, and the mad clown pointing a gun at Bruce.

“You were always the smartest of the three of you,” Bruce suddenly said and it nearly sent Tim off balance. “You are smarter than you know, Tim. You made the right call. The second dose of fear gas showed me Joker’s worst fear. Being forgotten. Being ineffectual and insignificant. Once I accepted that that was what he truly was, I could overcome him.”

“Yeah, he’s so ineffectual, he _killed_ Jason! He’s so ineffectual, he’s double-crossed both Scarecrow and the Arkham Knight and taken out the parts of their militia that you didn’t mop up. Permanently.” Robin had seen the reports. Throughout the city, corpses dressed in red and gray had shown up in increasing numbers, most of them smiling, many of them maimed. Joker had been making a statement. “He’s so ineffectual, he managed to inject Barb’s dad with a dose of Titan and I had to leave him behind with the damn clown and the Arkham Knight, because there was no way I could knock out Jim and get you away from Joker at the same time.”

“You made the right call. Jim was not in any danger.” Bruce stood up slowly and downed half the cup of water Tim had put in his cell before sealing the blasted thing. “He is alright now, is he not?”

“Barely.” Robin had seen that report, too. “GCPD fished him out of the bay an hour ago. Someone dropped him down the cliff and it’s a miracle he survived. He’s in Gotham General right now, but he could have died.”

“No, he could not.” Bruce sat down again and resumed what Tim could only assume was an eyes wide open meditation. “Individuals enhanced with the Titan drug are remarkably resilient. A fall like that was not going to kill Jim and he knew that.”

“He?”

“The Arkham Knight. Ja—“

It was the sound of a motorcycle rushing into the cave that disrupted their conversation. Somehow, Alfred was already waiting there, next to the Batmobile, with a wheel chair ready for Barb and a cup of tea ready for Dick on a nearby tray. Both accepted gratefully, and before he knew it, Barbara was on her way to meet him. Perhaps it was stupid, letting his guard down, even here in the cave, but Tim didn’t care. He wanted this moment. Just one moment of vulnerability. The feeling as he sank to his knees and Barb’s arms wrapped around him was the sweetest thing he had ever known.

And then the silence returned.

He had expected something, some corny quip from Dick, or maybe a barrage of those sharp, to-the-point questions that he could so frighteningly easily slip into. Tim had, of course, laid out the most important points to Dick while on his way back to the manor, but he had had to leave out a hundred details. Also, Dick had been called to Arkham Asylum, to help with moving the commissioner. In between this and that and the next thing, there had been no chance to discuss any details, much less come up with a plan.

“Dick—“ He looked up from where he had buried his face in Barb’s hair, only to see Dick sitting at the Batcomputer, typing away furiously. That alone rang every alarm bell in his head. “Dick, what’s going on?”

“Gift from the Joker.”

That was all that needed to be said. Tim eyed the box next to the computer with dread. The last time they had received a box from Joker, it had held an invitation to a TV show on top of Mercy Bridge. An invitation to watch Robin, to watch Jason, die.

The screen came to life just as Barbara and Tim had come close enough to stand right behind Dick. Tim gave one last look back over his shoulder and noted that Bruce’s face was all but pressed to the bullet-proof glass of his cell now, then turned back to the screen.

It was like a nightmare. One of the returning ones that came back over and over. Joker’s face close-up in front of a camera, the grin on his face, the delight in his voice. Behind him, darkness. Tim shuddered.

“Hello there, Batsy!” Joker was chipper as ever. “Fancy seeing you again like this! I hadn’t exactly planned for this, but after the delightful bag of surprises you gave me at the Asylum I just couldn’t help myself. After all, relationships _thrive_ on reciprocity, don’t they?”

“Does he have to find new ways to make me want to hurl?” Barbara frowned at the screen. Joker’s not-so-subtly suggestive threats had never sat well with her. “Just get to the point, you creep.”

“But you see,” Joker continued, parading up and down in front of the lens with a finger raised like some caricature of a nineteenth-century teacher, “I think what an obsessive-compulsive, Halloween-costume-obsessed lunatic like you really needs is a complete set of crazy! I mean, let’s see? Who do you already have?” He procured a blood-splattered sheet from behind the camera and started reading.

“Crazy scientist – check! Overtly religious, blood-trenched angel-of-death-wannabe – check! Vampire... bat – check! Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – check! Evil sorcerer – check! Wicked, withering witch – check! Evil nurse – check! Scarecrow – well, that one’s on me, let’s be honest, hahaha! One relentless killer – check! A zombie – check! Strangely adult character from a beloved children’s book – check! Werecroc – check! Two crazy pyromaniacs for the price of one – check! John Kramer's intellectual half-brother – check! And, the most evil of all,” Joker paused for dramatic effect, then winked at the camera. “A money-grabbing business man! Check...”

“Someone’s been keeping tabs,” Robin muttered sourly.

“More like getting his grimy paws on GCPD’s booking sheet,” Barb countered. “He missed Thomas Elliott. He’s locked up in the vault in WE.”

“That’s quite the collection you have there, Bats!” Joker grinned at the camera. “But you are missing the most important one. The most obvious, most classic of all Halloween costumes!”

Suddenly, there was a spotlight behind him and Joker stepped aside. There, in the middle of the light, a man was hanging from a set of iron chains. Underneath the skin-tight, black bodysuit, the muscles stood out in perfect definition, twitching ever so slightly as the figure writhed in its constraints. His feet were bound together, his head covered with what looked like a black garbage bag. Joker’s smile grew as he maneuvered next to the man and grabbed the top of the bag.

“Tonight, for your pleasure: a ghost from the past!”

The bag came off with one swift pull and the figure underneath lashed out angrily. Tim froze. There was no mistaking that helmet. To his left, Barbara yelled at the screen, a high-pitched ‘no’ that was filled with irrational anguish. This bastard had kidnapped and nearly killed her? Why would she care?

“Let him rot,” Dick muttered as the Knight turned to hide the broken part of his helmet from the relentless eye of the camera. “Let the bastard and the clown tear each other apart.”

“Dick—“

“You probably wonder why you should care,” Joker interrupted Barbara’s protest. “Good question, Batsy! He’s probably wondering exactly the same thing. After all, you didn’t care last time, when he was not actually trying to kill you and destroy your city. So why bother now, hm?” All of a sudden, there was a long stick in his hand. Iron. Steel, possibly. Something curved glowed at its end, and the realization hit Tim in the gut with the force of a titan punch.

“Oh god, no!”

Joker grinned. “Let’s jog both your memories, shall we?”

Strong hands gripped the red helmet and held it steady, and the glowing J descended as swiftly as it had entered the picture. From inside the mask, a blood-curdling scream echoed through the darkness of the prison into the darkness of the cave, freezing the three of them where they stood and sat. Tim knew that voice. They all did.

Behind his back, in the containment chamber, Bruce’s unarmored fists hammered against the glass.

***

‘Burn’ was too soft a word. So were ‘scorch’, ‘sear’, and ‘melt’. Jason wasn’t sure there was a word in any language for the pain that shot through his cheek as the iron pressed hard against his flesh and bone. Again.

 _Dear god, why this again? Why, of all things, of all people...?_ Was this his punishment for believing Joker’s lies? For trying to kill Bruce? For killing so many people on his quest to kill Bruce?

The iron withdrew, but the pain remained. Jason gritted his teeth as the clowns laughter crept into every fiber of his body once more.

“Oh Todders, I missed you!” The clown patted him on the fresh injury and it stung like a thousand needles. “I mean, I’d figured you’d just rot down in that hole in Arkham and Batsy would eventually find you and cry big, ugly tears over your corpse, but you actually got out! That’s a good one! And now look at you! All grown up, all violent and dark, taking over this dump of a city, death and mayhem everywhere, and you even almost dusted the old flappy wings!” Suddenly, one of Joker’s arms was around him and just the mere feeling wanted to make him throw up. The other arm was stretched out in front of him, holding up an old-fashioned mirror. Joker was grinning from ear to ear. “I told you we’d make a great Dynamic Duo!”

“Fuck off!” He twisted as hard as he could, what with the remnants of whatever muscle-relaxing agent they had packed into that tranquilizer still coursing through his veins, and sent the clown stumbling backward. “Go to fucking hell, you bastard! I swear I’ll kill you, and if it’s the last thing I fucking do with my life!”

Joker was not laughing anymore. That was never a good sign, but Jason couldn’t have cared less. He had done this dance once. He could do it again. At least this time he had a chance. Small, but he had it. All he had to do was stall for time. Just like Batman had taught him. This time, Jason knew he would come, and whatever punishment he was going to visit upon him for all he had done tonight – jail, madhouse, death – no matter what, it would be better than another fifteen months with his clown.

There were small steps behind him, then the sound of a box opening and closing. Jason tried to turn and see, but the chains were hung high and his body was weak. The night had taken too much out of him already. The night and the Knight.

“I am disappointed, Jason.” There was no laughter in the voice. No amusement. Just disgust and abject hatred. Jason shuddered. “You just ruined my best joke ever. I thought I had raised you better than that, but, no, here you go disrespecting your good old uncle J! And I will be honest with you: as much as I enjoyed teaching you manners last time, I don’t want to waste another fifteen months of my life on someone as numb-skulled as you.”

 _Fifteen months of_ **your** _life?_ Jason wanted to tear him apart piece by piece. Death was too good for this pile of garbage. Hell was too good for him. As Joker walked back into his sightline, Jason braced himself for the inevitable torture to come.

In Joker’s right hand, the liquid shimmered gold in the syringe.

“Let’s take a shortcut, shall we?”

He tried to get away, but Joker’s grip was steady as could be. The needle went into his throat swiftly and deeply, and the toxin followed right after. It burned under his skin, like fire ants crawling through his veins. The floor and walls started breaking apart around him. Joker started to dissolve. Next thing he knew, Jason was falling and falling and falling, seemingly forever, through an endless, dark void, until a sudden, sharp tug on his wrists nearly separated his hands from his arms. He closed his eyes for all of a second to cry out in pain. When he opened them again, the void was gone.

He was hanging from a chandelier of solid gold and clear quartz and tear-shaped light bulbs, naked and bleeding and covered in dirt. _Just like before_. Fifteen feet below him, pairs of dead scientists, policemen, and ACE Chem workers were dancing over the smooth hardwood floors of the Manor’s ball room. On the gallery in front of him, Lucius, Alfred, Bruce, Dick, Barbara, and Robin – _Timothy Drake_ , some part of his brain corrected – were watching the festivities and his blood dropping to the ground with smiles on their faces and champagne in their hands.

“So Jason is alive? And he’s the Arkham Knight?” Dick sounded incredulous. Barbara, looking absolutely statuesque and stunning in her sparkling, amethyst ball gown, nodded enthusiastically.

“Yeah. And he personally drove the Cloud Burst tank, too. I wonder how many people that thing killed.”

“More than enough.” Bruce was glum as ever. “Many of them his own men, I suppose.”

“And we are going to rescue this psychotic moron exactly why?”

“We’re not, Tim.” Bruce handed his glass of champagne back to Alfred in exchange for a fresh bandage for the bullet wound in his flank. The one the Arkham Knight had given him. Then, he picked up a fresh glass and raised it in Jason’s direction. The blue of his eyes was colder than ice as it pierced straight through the J on Jason’s face. “I wasted almost two years of my life on this ungrateful, whining, miserable excuse of a human being. Let him rot with Joker. The two of them deserve each other.”

“If we are lucky,” Lucius added with a toast to the others, “they might even kill each other. It would certainly be for the best of Gotham.”

“I’ll drink to that!” Dick raised his glass and downed it in one go. He had never looked happier.

“Shall I ignore the signal then, Master Bruce?” Alfred asked proper as ever. Bruce shook his head.

“Don’t ignore it, Alfred. Turn it off. Wipe that channel from the system. Delete all his files and clear out his room, while you are on it, as well. I want every trace of him gone from my life by sunrise.”

Alfred nodded and bowed, then set out to his task with Lucius quick behind him. Tim Drake raised his glass. Dick, Barbara, and Bruce followed suit.

“To a world without failed Robins!”

“And failed brothers!”

“And failed students!”

“And failed sons!”

Jason screamed, but no sound left his mouth. The others continued, laughing, joking, dancing. They had gotten their wish. It was as if he had never been there. The freezing, fanged ball of abandon settled in his gut once more and it felt painfully familiar. This is how it had started. This is how it had ended. From the balcony where Bruce and the others had stood, Joker grinned at him.

“You hear that, Jason? Just you and me now. Forever! What a worthless bunch of pretending losers... In their eyes, you don’t even exist anymore!”

“Good...” Somehow, the familiarity of it all was as comforting as it was excruciating. He watched as Joker’s smile fell slowly and whatever doubt he had had, vanished. “That means I have nothing left to lose.”

***

“We have to save him!”

“And then what?” Dick threw his arms wide open and looked at Barbara in utter confusion. “Barb, I love Jason. He’s my brother. But he killed people tonight. He shot Bruce. He kidnapped you. His militia left behind a bloodbath at ACE Chem and on Stagg’s airships and God only knows how many people they killed elsewhere!”

“He stopped Scarecrow from gassing me,” Barbara lobbed back at him. Tim had never seen her so desperate before. It was rare to see real tears in Barb’s eyes. “He saved Tim and Bruce at the Asylum. He probably saved my dad, too, even if he did do it by pushing him off a cliff. He doesn’t deserve to be back with _him_!”

“Of course not,” Dick agreed. “But what are we going to do when we find him, huh? Turn him over to the authorities? Bruce trained him, Barb. No prison could hold him for long. And he’s psychotic at best. We can’t just let him run free in Gotham after everything he did.”

“If.” Tim didn’t even notice that they were looking at him in confusion, until Barb poked him in the ribs. He had been too deeply lost in thought. And in the sound of that scream. “ _If_ we can find him. Remember how well that went last time?”

“We will find him,” Barbara insisted and she fixated on Dick with a stare that could break metal. “And we will _not_ turn him over to the police, nor will we let him go. Jason needs help, Dick! I talked to him. Yes, he’s psychotic. There’s a part of him, a part that Joker created, that is pure hate and rage and blackness. And then there’s Jason and he’s in pain! He misses Alfred. He misses us. He wants to go back and he’s afraid that he can’t. He’s scared to death, Dick, and I’m not giving up on him!”

“I...” Dick’s hands fell to his side and he almost seemed to crumble in on himself. The sight sent shivers up Tim’s spine. He had never seen Dick so lost, so helpless. Dick was the one who always knew what to do. Dick was the one who was always an optimist. Dick was the one who could talk you into jumping off a skyscraper AND catch you, as promised. “I’m not saying we should give up on him. We _won’t._ We will find him and we _will_ save him, but we need a plan, Barb!”

Tim could hear her argue back long before she opened her mouth and he turned away from the discussion in frustration. Barb was right. So was Dick. On the other side of the room, Bruce was pacing up and down, no doubt going through a list of possible hiding spots for Joker in his mind, in the spacious confines of his containment cell. It was much larger than the ones at Panessa and more comfortable, too. After all, it had been built specifically for nights like this. To lock up Batman or Robin in case they got poisoned by Ivy or Crane or any of the other crazies.

 _To lock up Batman or Robin..._ and what had Jason been, if not Robin?

“The containment cells!” The arguing continued and Tim sighed in frustration. Clearly he’d have to shout over both Barb and Dick to get his point across. He marched over to the Batmobile, picked up his staff where it lay abandoned on the floor, and walked back to Nightwing and Oracle. The long rod made for a good barrier and he pushed Dick away gently as he stepped between them.

“We’ll find Jason and then we’ll bring him right here.” He pointed at the second, empty cell on the far side of the room. “He won’t like it. Hell, it will probably trigger a crap ton of PTSD, but if there’s any part left inside him that really wants to reconnect with us, he’ll understand why.”

“What makes you so sure about that?”

Tim pointed at the other cell right next to it. “Look at Bruce. He’s been in there for more than an hour, perfectly cooperative. If Bruce can do it, so can Jason. If he’s proven anything tonight, it’s that he’s more like Bruce than any of us will ever be.”

Barb seemed to mull it over in her head. He could see the displeasure in her eyes, could read the unspoken caveats and what-ifs on her lips, but in the end, she nodded.

“I hate to say it, but it is the best solution. We’ll be able to watch over him. Give him the support he needs. And he won’t be able to hurt anyone as the Arkham Knight.”

Tim nodded, then looked at Dick. “Acceptable?”

“Yeah.” Dick sighed. “Yeah, I don’t like it either, but you’re right. This is our best bet.”

“Perfect.” Barbara wheeled her chair around and rolled up to the keyboard of the Batcomputer. “I’ll start a search right now. Satellite, infrared, video surveillance... I’ll start with the road to Arkham Peninsula, see if I can find and track any vehicles Joker might have used.”

“That won’t be necessary, Miss Gordon.”

Alfred’s voice descended from the stairs and it was followed quickly by the rest of him. The aloof, sophisticated gait of proper decorum had given way to the man underneath, military-trained, battle-hardened, and spurred by the instinctive and pressing need to protect his family. Tim had seen him step like that before and it had always baffled him. It was like there were two Alfreds and this one would stop at nothing to protect his charges.

“He is at The Wayne Foundation’s Jason Todd Shelter For Homeless Children in Arkham City.”

The screen of the phone Alfred slipped onto the desk blinked in bright yellow. Through the speaker, a steady, loud SOS Morse code signal sounded on a permanent loop. Dick’s face was white as snow as he picked it up.

“That’s the number you told us to dial in case any of us ever get kidnapped in our civilian identities. A silent alarm with a unique frequency to track.”

“Indeed it is.” Alfred straightened out the lapels of his jacket. “And I took the liberty of following the trace already. I can confirm Master Jason is in Arkham City.”

“Makes sense,” Barbara connected the phone to the computer quickly and brought up the map. “No police, no witnesses, and we do know Joker knows Jason’s name, so it would make a twisted sort of sense that he’d pick _that_ place.”

“I’ll take the car.” Tim turned around quickly and strode over to the Batmobile. He was faintly aware that Dick was right behind him, headed for his bike. He was just about to slip into the driver’s seat when he noticed Bruce staring at him from behind the glass. Tim shook his head. “Oh no, you’re not coming with us.”

“Tim—“

“Bruce... no!” Dick took off his cowl and walked over to the cell. “Until we have run every test possible, until we can be absolutely sure that you’re no danger to anyone, you’re staying in there. You think Jason’s the only one who’s got to win back some trust? Get in line!” He shook his head and Tim could see the frustration and sympathy all but roll off his shoulders. “You want to help, Jason, Bruce? Lead by good example and show him that he can trust us.”

Dick slipped his cowl back on, jumped onto the bike and revved up the engine. Tim gave one last look at Barb, then closed the cabin of the Batmobile and followed him out of the cave. The hunt was on.

***

The race to the walls of Arkham City took exactly seventeen minutes, but it felt so much longer than that. Tim parked the Batmobile right in front of its gates, then grappled straight up the walls, and was pleased to find that Barbara had already knocked out the cameras and turrets for them.

Arkham City itself had not changed much since he had last seen it. Redevelopment had not yet started and the city lay abandoned. He followed Dick as he vaulted, grappled and zip-kicked from roof to roof, straight to the shelter near Crime Alley.

Joker had set up a perimeter. Four snipers. Six assault rifles. It would have been doable on his own. With Nightwing by his side, it was a piece of cake. The snipers went first, then the others. It took them less than two minutes and not a single pebble had been disturbed.

The building itself was empty, but they were cautious nonetheless. Nightwing had the front. Robin took the back door. It was quiet again, except for the incessant dripping of a broken, leaky roof, and Tim tried not to think of the implications of the silence as he scoured the upper floors. By the time he rendezvoused with Nightwing on the ground floor, the feeling of dread had almost become a tangible thing.

“Basement.”

“Definitely.” Nightwing reached into one of his pouches and pulled out two palm-sized motion sensors. He handed one to Robin and Tim headed back to the back door. It was good thinking. The last thing they needed was re-inforcements arriving unannounced.

“Barb?”

“I’ve got all nearby cameras covered. You’re good to go.”

Tim smiled. Once upon a time he had found it scary how she always seemed to know what he was thinking. Now... now it was comforting and he wouldn’t have had it any other way.

The door to the basement was underneath the stairs and it creaked loudly as he opened it. There were no trip wires he could see. No hidden alarms. No traps. It wasn’t surprising. He doubted Joker had had much of an opportunity to prep the place. Dick went in first, sticks at the ready, and Tim followed quickly, his staff in hand. As they descended down the stairs, two skeletal outlines became visible on his cowl vision and Tim shuddered.

One of them was lying on the ground, motionless and broken. Even a cursory glance told him that the skull was in at least a dozen pieces. The other one was sitting on the prone figure’s chest, fists hammering down relentlessly.

“Jason!”

Dick broke into a run and vaulted, grabbing the puncher by the rib cage and pulling him aside. As Tim moved in closer, the full extent of the damage became visible.

Underneath a meat hook swinging from the ceiling, Joker’s body lay bloodied and bruised. The hideous face was nothing but a crater and Tim could no longer tell where the red of the lips ended and the red of the blood began. Which of those white chips were bone and which were skin? He couldn’t tell. What he did know, was that the clown’s brains were over the floor. Joker was dead.

“Jason, stop!”

“I’m gonna kill him!” In the hole in the red helmet, the fresh burn shone brightly in the darkness. Above it, a pale blue eye fixated on Joker’s body with frightening intensity. “I’ve gotta kill him! It’s the one thing I can do right. I gotta kill him!”

“He’s dead already, Jason.” Tim crouched down slowly, took off his cowl, and tried to slip it into Jason’s helmet, but if it hadn’t been for Dick’s expertly applied winding hold that would have put an octopus to shame, he would have gotten a kick to the face for his trouble. “Hold still, Jason. I’m trying to help you. See?”

Tim activated the cowl vision and stepped to the side. Behind the holographic lens, Jason’s eye still stared at Joker with an intensity that bordered on insanity, but at least his struggling slowed down. Tim breathed in relief.

“It’s done. He’s dead.” Jason sounded strangely detached. There was no joy in his voice. No relief. He swallowed hard. “I killed Joker.”

“Yes,” Tim nodded. “You killed Joker. If you can promise _me_ to stop struggling, I promise _you_ to buy you a beer when we get out of here.”

“You hate me.” Jason’s voice was oozing bitterness and Tim took a step back in return. It felt like a slap to the face and for a moment, all words were gone from his brain. “A psychotic moron... the failed Robin... you hate me...”

“No one hates you, Little Wing,” Dick muttered quietly as he pressed a soft kiss to the spot where Jason’s shaggy black hair peeked through the broken helmet.

“A failed Robin... a failed brother...” Jason swallowed hard. Even in the darkness of the basement, Tim could see the sheen on the black leather of the cowl. Tears. “A failed son. I can’t go back.”

“You can and you will, Master Todd.” Through the spare comms unit in his gauntlet, Tim could hear Alfred’s voice loud and clear and the sound made Jason freeze up. “Please, Master Todd. I implore you: come back home. We miss you.”

“Alfie...”

The cowl came off first. Tim took it back without a word, then watched as Jason hit the release latches on the helmet and slid it off his head. There were shards of red sticking to his skin in multiple places and his hair was a mess. Whether that was sweat or tears on his face was hard to tell objectively, but Tim could take a guess. Dick’s legs slowly uncurled from where they had pinned Jason’s, but his arms remained slung around his brother’s waist, holding on for dear life as he murmured a steady stream of re-assurances into his ear. Tim took a deep breath.

“Alfred, prep the chamber. Barb, call GCPD. Tell them where to find Joker. And get ready to make some evidence disappear. We’ve got DNA all over this room.”

***

There was a jackhammer in his head and a chainsaw in each of his joints. Jason cursed as the world slowly swam into focus and his brain finally registered all the input. He was in pain. He was lying on something soft. It was half-dark.

_I do not know this place._

The thought sent adrenaline racing through his veins almost instantly and he shot up from here he was lying, only to feel his entire world sway around him. He felt light and heavy at once. He felt sick. _What the hell—_

“Relax, Jason.”

The voice came from his ten o’clock and Jason raised his head in the direction instantly. His vision was still slightly hazy, but he could see enough to make dread clutch his gut like cold tendrils. Dark, jagged rock. The glow of a giant, blue monitor in the distance. The far-off sound of high-pitched screeching.

“I’m in the cave.”

“You are home.” He said it as if there had never been any doubt about it. To his far left, behind a pane of what Jason presumed to be bullet-proof glass, Bruce stood, dressed in a simple black combo of pants and a long sweater, his face blank as ever. “Joker injected you with fear toxin. You were... asleep for two days. We were starting to worry.”

 _More like screaming at the top of my lungs for two days!_ Jason knew his ‘sleep’. There was no sleep. No peace. Only more nightmares. He wanted to laugh at Bruce’s feeble attempt to sugar-coat the truth, but the sound died in his throat as the rest of his surroundings registered in his brain.

The cell was spacious and looked comfortable, but it was still a cell. Reasonable temperatures, a comfortable cod, and a desk stacked with books and water and food in foam dishes brought it up a thousand notches from any prison he had ever seen from the inside, but that didn’t change the fact that it was a cage.

 “It’s a compromise,” Bruce said, as if he had read Jason’s fucking mind. “They want to make sure that we won’t be a threat to anyone, but they don’t want us locked up in a real prison either.”

“They?”

“Tim. Barbara. Dick. Alfred.” Bruce shrugged ever so slightly. “It’s a compromise, Jason. I don’t like it any more than you do.”

“Then walk the fuck out!” _Vertigo be damned_. He got to his feet quickly, strode over to the glass pane that separated them and slammed his fist straight into Bruce’s face. “Get lost! You think I enjoy watching you hover over me like I’m some ticking time-bomb, huh? I don’t need your fucking scrutiny, Bruce!”

“You assume I _could_ walk out of here.” The confusion must have registered on his face, because Bruce sighed. “I was infected with Joker’s blood in Arkham City. It is a long story, but the infection was slowly turning me, and four other people, insane. Just like Joker. Scarecrow’s toxin... the double dose I received at the Asylum, seems to have cured me, but I don’t blame the others for being cautious. I want this.”

“Really?” Jason smirked. He could see the way the brand on his cheek warped the expression into something hideous in his reflection. He could feel it slice through his flesh. “I killed Joker.”

He had expected a disappointed stare. Or maybe a lecture. Or any kind of reaction, really. Instead, Bruce merely continued to stand there, solid as a tree, looking at him as if nothing had changed. But it had. Everything had changed.

“I killed him, Bruce! With my own bare hands! I beat him into a bloody pulp! He’s dead!”

“I know.”

“Oh, good!” he hit the glass once more. The shock reverberated up his bones and froze his fist in place as he gritted his teeth against the pain. “Go on! Say it! You’re disappointed! I’m a failure. You hate me. SAY IT, GODDAMN IT!”

“I don’t hate you, Jason.” Slowly, Bruce’s right hand reached up to the spot where Jason’s fist rested. It pressed against the glass gently. “I never could. You are my son, Jason. And I am glad you are alive.”

He wanted to scream. He wanted to rage. He couldn’t. He wanted to hate Bruce, but he couldn’t. Not anymore. The blackness washed over him like a tsunami and he was on the ground, curled up in the corner before he knew what had happened. What he did know was that this was a Wayne Tech containment cell. He would be wasting his energy trying to get out of it.

“I’m gonna rot here.”

“No, you won’t.” Slowly, Bruce followed his movements and sat down on the opposite side of the glass. “You will rest. You will heal. And you will pick yourself up again. You will rise again, better, stronger than before. And you will live.”

Jason snorted. “When did you become the eternal optimist?”

“I’m not,” Bruce countered. “But I’ve seen you do it before, all on your own. This time you’re not alone, Jason. Dick. Barbara. Tim. Alfred. Lucius. They are all glad you’re alive. They will all help you. As a matter of fact, Alfred should be here with dinner soon.”

 _Alfred. Dinner._ That sounded nice, but it didn’t change the facts of where he was and why.

“And you, Bruce?”

On the other side of the glass, Bruce took a deep breath. “I’ll be here, too, Jason. I am not leaving this cell before you.”

“I tried to kill you! I kidnapped Barb... Do you have any idea how many people are dead because of me?” Jason bit back at him. How thick a skull could a person have?

“The Arkham Knight did that, Jason. You are not him. You are not what Joker made you. You are better than that.”

“Oh, but I did kill, Bruce. Joker. That was all me. I. Killed. Joker.”

Bruce seemed to ponder that for a minute. Then he shrugged. “He won’t be missed, Jason. But you were. I missed you, Jason.”

His brain was searching for some biting rebuke to give, but he had none. He wanted to rage, but he felt too tired. Too tired of the constant fear and the hate and the rage. Too tired of this... _blackness_ that Joker had poured into him. He wanted to shout, but his throat felt hoarse. His eyes were burning and he squeezed them shut.

He wanted... he wasn’t really sure what he wanted anymore. Slowly, Jason’s arms wrapped around his knees, drawing them up until he could bury his face in them, an instinctive gesture, so primal in its essence that it wiped the rest of his mind blank. In the twilight of his class cage, Jason let out the blackness the only way he still could.

In the twilight of his glass cage, Jason cried.


End file.
